11.2019 | THE SCIENTIST 51ROGER PAYNE
Founder and president, Ocean Alliance, Gloucester, MA
Member, Scientific Committee, International Whaling
Commission (1983–1989)
Adjunct Associate Professor, Rockefeller
University (1971–1985)
MacArthur Fellowship (1984)
Research Zoologist, Institute for Research in
Animal Behavior (1966–1983)
Scientific Director, Whale Fund of the New York
Zoological Society (1970–1983)
Assistant Professor, Rockefeller University (1966–1971)
United Nations Global 500 (1991)
Dawkins Prize for Animal Conservation and
Welfare (2008)
Greatest Hits
- Discovered that humpback whales sing songs
- Proposed that whale songs can be heard across
oceans, a hypothesis that was later confirmed by
one of his former students - Developed numerous research techniques for
studying whales in the wild - Coproduced records of his whale songs and
compositions that incorporate whale songs
Upon completing his postdoc, Payne received a job offer from
Griffin, who had moved from Harvard to Rockefeller University
in Manhattan. But Payne hated the thought of moving back to
a big city, so he declined the offer and remained at Tufts as an
assistant professor of biology. “The idea of ever having to return
to New York was absolutely abhorrent,” Payne says. “I had four
kids by then, and I couldn’t imagine trying to raise them in that
environment.”
A few years later, Griffin managed to convince Payne to visit
Rockefeller. This trip changed Payne’s mind. To his surprise, the
campus was a green oasis hidden away from the hustle and bustle
of the surrounding metropolis. At first, Payne’s family remained in
Massachusetts, and he drove back to visit them on the weekends.
But by a stroke of good fortune, Payne was eventually able to find
the perfect home for his family near the city in a place called Wave
Hill, a sprawling green estate in the Bronx. There, the Paynes
lived in an unused underground gymnasium with four bedroom-
size changing rooms, a kitchen, and a living room fitted with a
massive glass wall of windows that looked out onto a stunning
view of the Palisades, a line of steep cliffs along the western shores
of the Hudson River.It was by this time the mid-1960s, and within a few months
of making the move, Payne made the switch to studying whales.
Commercial whaling was then at its peak—and unchecked
hunting was causing several populations of whale species to
steeply decline. However, other than the desecrated dolphin on
the beach, Payne had never seen a whale up close, and he had
no idea where to find one. Luckily, he received a tip from one
of the New York Zoological Society’s trustees, the physician and
millionaire Henry Clay Frick II. During one of the organization’s
meetings, Frick mentioned to Payne that he and his family
frequently sighted humpback whales at their estate in Bermuda.
So Payne went to Bermuda, where he met a man named
Frank Watlington, who was on a secret mission for the US Navy
that involved listening to the ocean. While eavesdropping on
the seas, Watlington had picked up some usual sounds that heThe hair still goes up on the back of my
neck when I remember thinking, ‘Holy shit,
Roger’s right.’
—Christopher Clark, Cornell University